Academic Partners

CREST’s mission is to build capability, capacity and consistency in to the global technical assurance, detection and response and threat intelligence markets. Our relationship with Academic institutions forms a core part of this strategy and as a consequence we actively work with colleges and universities to encourage the very best people to consider a career in the cyber security industry.

We recognise that to build talent for the future, we must invest in training and development today. By working closely with academia, CREST is able to invest in developing capacity in this future talent pool.

CREST provides the following support for academia:

Publicity for Universities that have relevant technical information assurance courses

Publicity for Universities that have relevant technical information assurance courses
CREST works with many parts of industry and government. The inclusion on the register of CREST Academic Partners will help raise the profile of the University to key influencers and potential student employers.

In association with Inspired Careers, CREST provides details of CREST Academic Partners and their courses.

Support to Syllabus Creation and RefinementCREST publishes a syllabus for each examination it runs. These have been used by Universities to create or refine the University courses.

This support would continue for Universities signed up to the CREST Academic Partner scheme.

Subsidised CPSA exam vouchers for Universities that have relevant technical information assurance courses.CREST will provide a subsidy against the cost of examination vouchers for Universities that run syllabuses which are aligned to CPSA. For Universities to qualify for this subsidy, they will need to purchase vouchers centrally, with a minimum block purchase of 10 vouchers.

Internship and Workplacement OpportunitiesInternships or work placements are a great opportunity for students to gain real world experience to complement their academic coursework, as well as a fantastic chance for businesses to get access to up and coming talent in security testing.

CREST receives a number of CV’s for internships and or work placement opportunities every month. These details are passed to representatives from CREST Member companies considerable success has been achieved in placing these students.

CREST does not charge for this service and will continue to provide it free of charge to its Academic Partners. There is also no fee associated with the placement of the students.

It would be helpful to CREST if the Universities could provide case studies and comments from successful students working in industry.

Career /advice and guidance to studentsCREST provides guest lecturers on career advice, ethics and the need to follow a professional development path. This is supported by career guides and career support tools.

CREST will also make electronic career support information available on its website in due course. This will be created in collaboration with the Academic Partners.

CRESTx Information ExchangeAvailability of good quality current information on the trends within the industry and details on exploits and threats is very poor to the student population. There is very little published material and often what there is is woefully out of date. The professionals working in this area are extremely busy and often do not have the time to write white papers. Discussion groups are also often limited to a very controlled circle of trusted individuals.

CRESTx has been designed as an information exchange and our initial emphasis is on the provision of presentations from professionals working in the area of technical information assurance. As part of this activity, CREST makes video copies of all the professional presentations from its annual conference, CRESTCon, available to the academic partners. CREST then provides support to the University to run their own conference, preferably organised by a student and utilising the material provided by CREST combined with presentations from students. In return we ask that the student presentations are filmed and then posted on the CRESTx website and via our YouTube site. We believe that this:

helps to provide the students with access to current research and threats;

starts the processes of sharing resources and information between Universities, a hot topic in Government;

provides exposure for the University, and in particular the students, allowing potential employers to see the quality of the individual students and the University in general.

You can view videos from past CRESTCon and CRESTx events by viewing our YouTube channel here.

You can also view photographs from these events by visiting our Flickr page here.

Further InformationYou can download a PDF with further details on the CREST Academic Partner Programme here:Academic Partner Program